The Good Tourist and the Laughing Cadaver

OK so this is probably the biggest reading disappointment so far this year. I read the whole book - it is a short story collection from multiple authors (all from New Zealand or Australia) - so by the law of averages there had to some redeeming stories in here - maybe even the last story...

But sadly, not the case. The cover calls this “Travel Stories from Australian and New Zealand Writers”. It is also supposedly a mixture of fiction and non-fiction (although only one story struck me as non-fiction (Murray Bail's From Here to Timbuktoo which was actually good, despite being far too short).

My assessment is that these are mostly NOT travel stories. A few are - they are journey tales. Most are not. Some take place in foreign places, but for the most part the travel is incidental to the story. They are also primarily relationship or situational stories - loads of emotion, inner thoughts and far too many lack any resolution, falling in the trap of being not “A Short Story” but an excerpt of a story or a beginning of a story. For me a successful story has a plot and a resolution. Not a wishy-washy gathering of thoughts that just end.

Having said that I have (of course) applied a masculine assessment, based on my own requirements out of a story. Others may love these stories, and they are primarily of a similar genre.

For me two stars.